Greenport Village tax rate to drop slightly

The Greenport Village budget will reduce the tax rate in the village for the fourth consecutive year, if adopted as is, according to Mayor George Hubbard Jr.

The tentative 2018-19 village budget is almost unchanged from the current year’s budget and the amount of taxes to be raised is the same: $989,100.

The difference is that the anticipated assessed value is the village is projected to increase slightly, which resulted in a half-percent decline in the village tax rate.

“It’s pretty much status quo,” Mr. Hubbard said. “Any capital projects we plan on doing, we’re going to try to use the money we got from PSEG, along with grants.”

The village received $1.3 million from PSEG-Long Island in exchange for allowing the utility to run a 13KV cable from its Southold substation to Fifth Street in Greenport and then underwater to Shelter Island Heights in order to provide residents there with additional power.

Greenport would otherwise have gotten no value from the cable, which doesn’t provide power to the village; Greenport has its own power plant.

Mr. Hubbard said the cable has now been successfully connected at Shelter Island and only minor work remains to be done before that project is complete.

The village also got word this week that Suffolk County has agreed to fund the a village project to make drainage improvements at several road-ends to keep rainwater from carrying pollutants into the bays.

While the county agreed to fund these projects, it has yet to say how much it will pay, Mr. Hubbard said.

The village wants to improve drainage at the ends of Brown, Clark, Flint and Fourth streets using the county money.

The mayor has said the estimate for this work is about $500,000.

Drainage on Fifth Street will be done by PSEG-Long Island, he said, so that won’t cost the village anything. The village will do the drainage work on Sixth Street, he said.

“That’s going to be a big help in protecting the waters,” Mr. Hubbard said.

Overall village spending for 2018-19 is projected to increase by $75,174, — or less than 1 percent — to $10,242,882.

The general fund is the only village fund that uses property taxes, according to the village’s financial report. Three other funds — electric, water and sewer — are self-supported through charges to customers, the report states.

“We’re cutting down on the budget each year,” Mr. Hubbard said. “We’re pretty much at the tail end of what we’re able to squeeze out of it, but we’re still squeezing.

A public hearing will be held Tuesday evening at the Old Schoolhouse on Front Street.